Every baby born and child adopted in Pa. in 2019 will get $100 for college

Born at 8:55 a.m., Liam McDannell was the county's first baby of 2019.
Ty Lohr, tlohr@ydr.com

Buy Photo

Mary McDannell looks at her son, Liam, through a window of an newborn intensive care unit warming bed, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2019. Liam was born at 8:55 a.m., weighing 1 pound 10 ounces and measuring 12 inches long. Liam was born at 25 weeks and is York County's first baby of the new year. (Photo: Ty Lohr, York Daily Record)Buy Photo

Babies born and children adopted in Pennsylvania in 2019 will get $100 to save for college after a new law that rolled out last year was expanded.

The Keystone Scholars program was introduced by State Treasurer Joe Torsella in February 2018. It's designed to "help encourage higher education aspirations and to serve as a catalyst to help families start saving early," according to the treasury website.

A child can have $10,000 in savings when they turn 18 if their family puts just $25 a month into a savings account beginning when they're born, based on the treasury's projections.

Children with higher education savings at birth are three times more likely to enroll in education or training after high school and four times more likely to graduate, the treasury said, citing a 2013 study.

In 2018, 1,250 families in the six counties where the pilot program was running claimed the $100 grant for their newborns.

The $100 scholarship grant that each child born or adopted in Pennsylvania starting in 2019 will receive can be used toward college or vocational education expenses. Private funds supported the program when was it was rolled out as a pilot program in 2018.

With the program expanded across the state, funding for the grants will come from investment earnings in the PA 529 College and Career Savings Program and from philanthropic donations.

Students who get the $100 grant have from age 18 until age 29 to use the money, or it's returned back to the program.